Convoluted
by teremala
Summary: Fifty short to very short RachelTobias drabbles, set throughout the series.


An entry for the LiveJournal community "1sentence"; fifty one-sentence-long responses to a variety of prompts. Theme epsilon, but rearranged for the sake of chronology.

* * *

Precious

Two hours, the Andalite had said; when he soars free, even that short time is precious.

Motion

The wind blows her hair and she turns into it, arms outstretched, and murmurs, "I'm so glad we can fly."

Gentle

When she strokes his feathery breast or runs a finger down his back, he wonders if she's even aware of what she's doing, and if she'd ever do it to the human him.

Power

He can still remember the day when he first touched the hawk, when its DNA had flown into him and had let him change into the powerful bird, escape his human self, but now that Rachel's found out that it's forever and he sees how she reaches toward him but cannot touch, he wishes it had never happened, and that the Andalite had never given them the power.

Book

She brings him a book, and though he's a bird and lives in a tree and will have to ask an alien open and close it for him, the gesture makes his day a bit brighter.

Child

He tries to pretend he isn't a child anymore, now that he's trapped inside the body of a hawk, but she knows that he is; they both are.

King

She'd seen Tobias watching her as Erek reprogrammed himself, but doesn't dare ask why.

Change

He had been so soft and easily injured before he became the hawk; which is it that she loves?

Time

He's human again and time stops for her; for him, it moves all the more quickly.

Naked

Human and he can't decide which is better: the hands that can feel, or the skin that can be felt.

Now

The morphing causes him no pain, she knows, but as she watches him become a bird once more, she wants to cry for him.

Wait

"It'll be over some day," they promise each other, willing it to be so: "Then it'll be different."

Wrong

He dreams of her kissing him softly, long limbs entangled with his as they sit in the grass, but then he wakes and remembers the feathers, the talons, and he realizes how terribly wrong it is - he's a bird, not a human, and they're just hurting themselves by pretending otherwise.

Wall

Try as he might to deceive himself, bloody mouse doesn't taste anything like dinner with Rachel in a nice restaurant.

Wash

The day is grey and the world seems devoid of detail, washed in with a giant brush, but then she sees a flash of red feathers and hears a voice calling, < Hey, Rachel!>

Hold

Rachel laughs and squeezes his hand, but it feels more like his heart, and he doesn't know if he can bear it.

Believe

"So," he says casually as they walk together, hand in hand, through the darkness, "do you suppose there's life on other planets?"

Goodbye

She was with him when Elfangor had died, but he had never told her what the alien had said to him, nor why it meant so much.

Mad

< You can talk to _me_, too, you know - I'm not such a psycho who doesn't understand human emotions that you have to go running to Ax all of the time.>

Bother

"They're such a bother," she always complains, but Tobias knows she loves her sisters and that they love her, and he longs for someone of his own to share that kind of love with.

Fool

She hates to hear him cursing himself for a fool because she knows he never would have hoped for a home - for a family, for love - if it hadn't been for her.

Fortune

"And you're just on top of the world, right - not a care in the world, out here in your sunny meadow with your nice fat mice and your snazzy Andalite buddy and no history test to fail tomorrow," she teases, and he laughs although he knows she almost means it.

History

He kisses her because she's alive, because her body is whole again when he had thought her gone; she kisses back because he looks cute in that sweater, ignorant of the fate she was spared.

Ghost

Rachel smiles at him and tosses her head, smooth blonde hair falling in a way that is both tousled and perfect; he wishes he could live in this moment forever.

Need

She fears the monster she's becoming and he fears the human he once was, but neither needs protection, comforting, love - oh, no; not Xena, not Birdboy.

Blur

Rachel never cries, of course, although he's seen her do so more than all of the others combined.

Soul

Tobias doesn't know if a hawk can have a soul, but if he does, it's hers.

Shadow

He loves her more than life itself, though that's not enough to keep him human.

Sing

"So, Andalite," Taylor says with a laugh, tilting her head to one side in a heartbreakingly Rachel-like gesture, "why doesn't this caged bird sing?"

Eye

Each thinks they know of their own weaknesses, but does not realize that seeing only strength in the other is a weakness, too.

Hide

Rain is no weather to be flying around in - and it's not so great for walking, either - so who could blame them for staying inside, safe and warm in Rachel's room?

Vision

He grumbles about poor human eyesight, and how he can't see anything, but really it's just an excuse to stare at her, and he thinks she knows.

Young

"They're all about hope," he observes afterwards with a smile, but Rachel's eyes are sad when he turns to look at her: "Yeah," she mutters, "I need to change that."

God

He morphs Taylor and Rachel watches, giggling as he moves around, as he fumbles with the strange clothing, but when he looks back at her, he sees only another girl, and is shocked; it's like being God, and seeing the sun as just another light.

Attention

He tries to pay attention as she hauls him from one rack of clothes to another, but after the fourth blue shirt pressed up to his chest, he loses track completely.

Torn

"We do fast strikes - boom, boom, boom," she insists as Tobias sits silent, torn between common sense and his love for her.

Command

She's in charge, she says, and he doesn't disagree, but he watches like the hawk he is, pulling the team together when she drives them apart, trying to create a semblance of support.

Safe

She takes the way he stays beside her, ever her steadfast friend, as hope that she isn't as far gone as she sometimes fears.

Harm

He wants to believe that Rachel is like the rest of them, in the war because she knows they're doing more good than harm, but deep inside, far past the things he allows himself to acknowledge, Tobias knows that she is different, that she lives for the war.

Sudden

_The kitchen, again_, she thinks with a laugh, remembering the old one, crushed under the elephant's weight, but with her mother preparing to attack her with a spice rack while screaming at Ax and Tobias to get away from her babies, Rachel doesn't suppose anyone's up for a joke.

Never

< 'Free or dead',> she reminds him, her voice certain, and he agrees though he knows he could never bear the latter.

Picture

He knows Rachel has a picture of him, but he doesn't want one of her; pictures are static and lifeless, but she could never be.

Drive

Tobias sees her driving the lead truck, and watches, helpless, as it picks up speed and begins to fly towards the line of men; when it stops a dozen yards short, he's elated -- until he sees Ax get out, Rachel glaring at him as if denied a treat.

Learn

She remembers when they went flying, the two of them together, just kids out having fun and thinking they could do _anything_ - boy, the war sure proved them wrong.

Last

< Help me,> she whispers and he does; he helps her to die valiantly because he knows now that it's to be her last request.

Thousand

Thousands of battles, it had seemed, and she had cheated death every time; what sense was there in it coming down to a single Yeerk, and a single morph?

Cool

He awakes some nights with their voices ringing out of deep, dark memory: he can ignore all but one; the one that cries from the dead, "This is so _cool_!"

Hunger

He wishes Rachel were here to see it; she would have laughed - all of their advanced technology, and the Andalites still have to travel eighty-two light-years for a decent cinnamon bun.

One

< Ax?> he whispers to the screen, feeling his heart being torn out again; does this creature have some essence of Rachel, as well?

Stop

He will die inside of _Rachel_ and it seems fitting, somehow, since that was where he had lived. 


End file.
